keyboards
TRX
May 7, 2012
25:
Keyboards are a good example of a thoroughly broken paradigm that keeps on
going due to the size of their installed base.
It's not just the QWERTY part, or the fact that almost all modern keyboards are relentlessly asymmetrical for right-handers, as it is that the designers (if, in fact, any "design" was involved) still assume the operators are typists or transcriptionists, sitting bolt upright with the keyboard down below ordinary desktop level, hammering nothing but letters and numbers out. I'm using an IBM keyboard now that's a good example of this; it's an AT/339 101-key board, and it is substantially dished. If it was sitting in my lap it would be ergonomic and comfortable; as it is, it sits pushed up against the monitors, with the trackball in front of it, and room for papers and reference material between the trackball and the edge of the desk. I type the equivalent of a full-size novel every month - about a megabyte, not including editing. The keyboard sucks, but it's the best of many I've tried.
Which leads me to the "natural" keyboards and "ergonomic" mice, which mostly slam right into the wall of "WTF!?" They're usually worse than what they're trying to fix. If I hold my arms out in front of me, my hands fall into position facing each other at about 90 degrees, palms down about 45 degrees from horizontal, fingers curled down, fingertip pads pointing back at my chest. ("stick your hands out" test repeated on many co-workers and relatives; results usually similar)
A "proper" keyboard should conform to the positions of my hands at rest, should not require tension lifting my fingers and forearms off the keys or desk when at rest, and should require minimal finger and wrist movement to operate. What I want is something that looks like a giant curved bean, with my palms resting on the top, curved rows of buttons cross the front (monitor side), and a big pocket for my thumbs in front, for the spacebar and special keys.
There's nothing like it that I've seen. Though if the RSI problem gets much worse, I'll probably try building one.
If you've ever looked into the history of typewriters, I'm describing something conceptually closer to the 19th-century "writing balls" than columns and rows of keys.
Most people don't know or care how bad they keyboard sucks; they peck out a memo or URL or text message a few times a day. Even an "on-screen" keyboard works for that...
I'd ditch the keyboard entirely and try a puck, except most of those are shaped just as bad as keyboards, plus I use the directional and function keys heavily for the things I do, and once you add those, and there's no easy way to jam that many (easily useable) keys onto a single puck. There have been attempts at two-puck systems, but those usually wind up as some variant of "split keyboard". I'm not necessarily against that, but it's not a solution that fits my requirements well.
The stories of Charles Moore pucking FORTH source code while driving still amuse me, though...
I've noticed a few odd things since RSI has shown up, though:
1) simply hammering text into a file doesn't bother me at all
2) it doesn't take much editing before the pain starts. I use the arrow pad for most of that, so the range of motion is very small, compared to the much larger range of motion (and more fingers being used) for text. I'm assuming there's a causal link there.
3) mousing (or trackballing) in general falls in between 1) and 2), but the more precise I have to be, the sooner it starts to hurt. Graphics and sound editing stuff will result in pain and numbness even before 2).
TRX
May 7, 2012
28:
@13:
I've had to give up climbing
---
I gave up my motorcycle. It got to where I couldn't ride for more than ten or
fifteen minutes before the pain overcame the fun. The last couple of years I
gave up riding on the street and just trailered it to the drag strip, but it
finally got to the point where that hurt, too.
TRX
May 8, 2012
86:
@60:
She was trained to hold her wrist well above the keys.
---
I tried to make that point earlier. The old OSHA recommendation for keyboard
height was around belly-button level, which is why old office furniture often
has a "typewriter return", with the bottom of the typewriter cutout brushing
the tops of your thighs.
Computer users normally have the keyboard *much* higher, which throws the geometry off considerably. Moving from row to row at the "proper" height doesn't involve the large forearm movements often required by a computer keyboard laying on a table or desk.
TRX
May 8, 2012
87:
@70:
use the side of the dominant eye - this is nearly always the side of the
dominant hand, but not always
---
An acquaintance's wife has an H&K P90. She's extremely cross-dominant, to the
point she couldn't really shoot the rifle and hope to hit anything. So Pookie
machined an offset bracket and mounted an Aimpoint a full four inches off to
the left side, which results in one of the craziest-looking firearms I've ever
seen, but he says she has no problem correcting for the offset when shooting.
TRX
May 8, 2012
88:
@77:
Except, if we were down the pub, there'd probably be drunken jokes about
wanking. Every conversation I've ever had about RSI, it's come up some
time.
---
I'll bet US$10 there's a vending machine somewhere in Japan with a USB device
for just that purpose...
TRX
May 9, 2012
120:
@107:
Indeed that is one weird rifle since there's no such thing as an "H&K
P90".
---
Indeed. A recurrent cerebral parity error consistently returns "H&K" for "FN".
Which is particularly embarrassing since I have various P90 parts laying on my
desk at this very moment...
TRX
May 9, 2012
141:
@128:
re:goats I spent some time trying to spread the meme "Goat on a pole!" but it
didn't catch on.
---
Sounds like the "midget Amish" meme I caught. It didn't go anywhere either,
but the vision of dour little fellas with dark suits and floppy hats haunted
me for weeks.
TRX
May 9, 2012
143:
@134:
If we can resolve the targetting issues, Feorag and Charlie could stay in bed
and shoot the goats through the roof!
---
Sentry gun. Add wifi and use your smartphone to select targets instead of
simply blasting anything that moves. There are a number of airsoft sentry guns
out there now.
They were science fiction when they appeared in "Aliens." Now they're DIY technology...
"Ah, Charlie, why are those goats on your roof flourescent yellow?"
TRX
May 11, 2012
158:
@154:
Does anyone make a 'board with fold-out "wings" I wonder, which is also
reasonably robust?
---
Back in the mid'90s one of the palmtops did that - you grabbed the sides and
pulled them out, unjamming all the tightly-packed keys and this putting space
between them. When I read about it in the magazines it just sounded like a
gimmick. I played with one in a store, and it was amazingly effective.
Unfortunately, I no longer remember the brand or model name. The gimmick might have been "expandable keyboard."
@155:
interesting setup
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Magazines like "Popular Science" sometimes had pictures of "computer
workstations of the future!" circa mid-1970s. Most of them seemed to be based
on an easy chair/recliner with the monitor on an overhead support in front of
you and the keyboard supported (usually) by some kind of adjustable arm.
The setups looked like just the ticket for "computer back", but it was obvious none of the designers knew squat about typing. Plus there was the problem that there was no desktop. Even subtracting the clutter that accumulates on my desk, I still need space for reference material, papers, etc.
TRX
May 11, 2012
165:
@159:
Blimey, I think that's it!
That inch or so to each side doesn't look like much at all in the picture, but like I said, it sure made a difference using it.
I had one running a serial bridge and modem to link an ancient (even for 1995) proprietary e-mail system to the current-but-weirdball e-mail system my then- employer was trying to standardize on, despite the smtp writing on the wall...
TRX
May 12, 2012
169:
@166:
Windows machine. Right now I've got two keyboards plugged in anyway
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Works fine on Xorg/KDE, too!
From a practical standpoint, it's sometimes useful to have a "compact" or infrared keyboard that takes up less desk space or lets you move around the room.